Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., boldly declared that the Valentine’s Day massacre “will be the last mass shooting.” | Terry Renna/AP Photo

Want Gun Control Laws? Forget Congress.

We were told this time would be different. Then Mitch McConnell and Republican legislators across the country stepped in.

Ever since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman murdered 17 people last month, a growing movement of student activists has tried its utmost to ensure that this would be the moment when assault weapons were banned and universal background checks became law. Never again, they said.

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Thanks at least in part to their activism, America’s national resolve to finally deal with gun violence has surged. In a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll last week, 68 percent of registered voters said they favor stricter gun control measures—the highest level of support in a quarter-century. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 97 percent of American voters support universal background checks, 83 percent support a mandatory waiting period and 67 percent support a nationwide ban on assault weapons.

Voters may support it, but Congress and most state legislatures do not. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that his chamber would skip the gun control debate entirely and instead take up a bill on banking. Similar intransigence reigns at the state level: After voting down efforts to tighten gun laws last week, Florida’s Legislature is moving forward with a bill to put more guns in classrooms by allowing some teachers to carry guns—and like-minded bills are being considered in Michigan and Oklahoma, among others.

Why is there such a disconnect between public opinion and what politicians are actually doing on gun violence? There are any number of explanations—the enormous sums of money pro-gun interest groups spend on lobbying and campaign contributions; widespread and successful gerrymandering by Republicans over the past two decades, which has allowed them to maintain control of Congress and state legislatures; and the fact that the vocal minority who want looser gun laws are much more politically active than the relatively silent majority in favor of stronger laws.

Whatever the reasons for the impasse, the reality is clear—politicians aren’t going to do anything about gun violence, so if voters want to see real progress on the issue, they need to take it up themselves.

Here’s why ballot initiatives are the way to go: On some political issues, conventional wisdom about what is possible is particularly slow to catch up to changes in public opinion. A good example is marijuana policy. Majorities, or at least large minorities, of the American public have favored recreational marijuana legalization for a decade, but only recently have mainstream politicians finally begun to get behind legalization. How did marijuana legalization go from being a fringe position to one backed by ambitious national politicians? Marijuana proved it could win at the ballot box.

By bypassing the legislative process and taking the case directly to the people through statewide ballot initiatives, marijuana legalization advocates won major victories. Those victories had both a huge policy impact—one-fifth of Americans now live in states in which recreational marijuana use is legal—and a major political impact in driving cautious politicians to realize that marijuana could be a winning issue.

Advocates of stronger gun laws should adopt a similar strategy. There are 24 states with some form of an initiative process, and many of those, including Florida, have very weak gun laws.

Better gun policy has already achieved some victories through this method. In 2016, voters in California approved a law requiring background checks for ammunition sales and voters in Washington state adopted a law broadening the ability of courts to keep guns away from people who present particular dangers to themselves or others. Even voters in Nevada (a state with otherwise very weak gun laws), approved a ballot measure requiring universal background checks.

To be sure, bringing the battle over guns to the ballot box will not be a panacea for fixing America’s gun laws. A 2016 universal background check ballot measure in Maine was defeated, and the Nevada measure is currently tied up in court because the Republican state attorney general refuses to enforce it.

But even unsuccessful measures can help galvanize a movement. A California ballot measure to legalize marijuana lost by 7 points in 2010, but six years later, a similar ballot measure passed by double digits. And, sometimes just the threat of a ballot initiative can spur reluctant legislators to act. After a credible ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana started gaining steam in 2016, the Ohio Legislature passed its own medical marijuana bill despite Republican control in both chambers.

Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, boldly declared that the Valentine’s Day massacre “will be the last mass shooting.” For her dream to have any chance of becoming a reality, we can’t let her words fall on the deaf ears of politicians; we must take the case for stronger gun laws directly to the people. This time it can be different.